


IKEA Erotica

by AnonymousPuzzler



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: (nothing totally explicit but like. it ain't subtle), Bickering, Domestic Fluff, IKEA, Implied Sexual Content, Inappropriate use of IKEA restrooms, M/M, Moving In Together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-03
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2020-02-16 12:17:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18691354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnonymousPuzzler/pseuds/AnonymousPuzzler
Summary: Neither Newt nor Hermann think the other will have strong opinions on how to decorate their new house. They are both very, very wrong.





	IKEA Erotica

**Author's Note:**

> A few days ago, I was on the road for several hours and asked for little mini ficlet prompts to chip away at during the trip. @LadyNearTheLake on twitter shot back with: "Newt and Hermann have just gotten their first house together. Neither thinks the other will have strong opinions re: how said house is decorated, but oh how wrong they are." I realized this fit quite well with a 'the boys go to IKEA' concept I'd already been playing around with in my head.
> 
> Things escalated very quickly from there. I hope you all enjoy.

This isn’t, in the strictest sense of the word, something _new_ _._ They’ve cohabited before, shared a space with one another. First, in the lab (though reluctantly and fraught with tension all the while, yellow-tape line across the floor a tenuous barrier keeping them from tearing out each other’s throats), then in the flat after that. In the latter, though, they’d still kept up with the pretense of separate bedrooms for a while, awkward arms-length distance maintained despite their drift-connection pulling them unstoppably closer, inch by inch.  
  
Suffice to say, the polite distance had long been abandoned. They’d just co-signed on a mortgage, scraping together their university funds (Hermann’s from his recent position as a tenured professor, Newt as a free-spirited adjunct devoid of permanent ties) for the down payment. And as if the investment into long-term domesticity wasn’t obvious enough, Newton had also taken to loudly, enthusiastically introducing Hermann as _my boyfriend_ to anyone who might listen. (Much to Hermann’s embarrassment — less because he didn’t want his affections broadcast, and more that he thought _boyfriend_ was such a flighty, juvenile term. _Lover_ was his preferred terminology, at least until the topic of marriage was invariably breached in the future, but Newton seemed even more embarrassed about being called _lover_ than Hermann was over _boyfriend_.)  
  
Irregardless, that wasn’t the major concern at the moment. No, what was pressing now was the revelation that they were truly, woefully unprepared for the prospect of a long-term living space.

It made sense, certainly, after the instability of years in research and academia, followed by that much more time in exponentially more unstable Shatterdomes across the globe, but seeing the evidence was still... rather depressing. Their china and cookware barely filled a single box, with the exception of Newton’s expansive collection of novelty mugs. The closest thing they had to decor was Newt’s various collectibles and posters, plus Hermann’s well-worn books and delicately-assembled model aircraft. Much of their furniture had been abandoned in the move, from the secondhand sofa too beat-up and food-stained (Newton’s fault) to be worth taking, to the single beds that couldn’t fit them both comfortably once they made the leap to sharing. The resulting collection of items, nearly two decade’s worth between two people, was barely enough to furnish a room and a half, feeling rather like one was attempting to stretch the contents of a bachelor pad discordantly across a sweet little starter home.  
  
“We need furniture,” Hermann grumbles, half to himself, on their third night eating takeaway on Newt’s old blow-up mattress.  
  
“We do,” the other man sighs, picking disinterestedly at the remains of his lo mein. Hermann has half a mind to snap at him to quit playing with his food — sleeping on the air mattress has been hell on them both, but particularly him with his hip, which has made him particularly cranky, and Newt particularly obnoxious in turn, the two a regrettable feedback loop of escalating irritability. But he’s tired, and Newton _did_ go to the trouble of getting takeaway from his preferred restaurant, and Newton has an alarming tendency to make his heart go soft and mushy even without such little favors. So instead of barking at him, he subtly tilts his takeaway container in Newt’s direction without looking up, pretending not to notice when he sneaks away another of Hermann’s dumplings.  
  
For better or worse, they don’t have to wait long after that for an opportunity to present itself. One of Newt’s fellow adjuncts — a newlywed woman who moved to the area but a month or two before the two of them found their house — asks after their recent move and suggests he and Hermann join her and her husband on an excursion to the local IKEA that weekend. Newton accepts in a heartbeat, though Hermann’s somewhat more reluctant about the whole affair; the young lady is quite nice, and he’s certain she means well, but she’s the type of straight person who seems to unconsciously regard the two of them as something of a novelty. (Newt, to be fair, seems to regard her and her husband in a similar manner. He spent the last staff mixer in a back corner with Hermann, cheekily making observations about the couple’s behavior in much the same way he would record his dissections of kaiju back in the war.)  
  
They desperately need furniture, though, and this seems as good a chance to look as any. And really, Hermann suspects they’ll be in and out in little time at all. Given their mutual history of choosing things for convenience over aesthetic, he doubts their standards for furniture selections will exceed _“is it comfortable”_ and _“can we afford it”_.  
  
In retrospect, such a theory was wildly, _hilariously_ naive of him.

“Absolutely _not,”_ he seethes, resisting the overwhelming urge to knock Newt off the (hideously ugly) sofa with his cane. “You can’t be _serious,_ Newton, this shade of green will clash _horrifically_ with the rest of the house—”

“Well _excuse_ me for not wanting all our furniture to be _boring!"_ Newt snaps back, sprawling petulantly across the couch, knocking the sample throw pillows to the ground as he does so. “Seriously, I’m not letting you pick the same bland-ass shades of grey for everything in our fucking house. Like, I’ve seen your closet, I know you hate anything even _slightly_ colorful—”

“I do _not!!”_

“You have _three_ of the exact same grey sweater, dude!!” Newton screeches, sitting up and gesticulating violently. “ _Three!!_ They’re not even, like, slightly different colors or patterns! You just got _three_ of the exact same sweater!!”

 _“It’s a good sweater—_ ”

“But _three?!”_

“I hardly— this is besides the point, Newton, I bloody well won’t let you turn our home into some— some mismatched _clusterfuck_ simply because you don’t understand the importance of neutral tones—”

“Oh, but _I’m_ supposed to just sit back and be yes-man to all _your_ picks?! This is my house too, y’know!!”

 _“Please._ Heaven knows I’ve hardly been able to stop you from running your mouth about every inane opinion that passes through your head—”

“You haven’t let me pick _one_ thing!!” Newton declares, voice breaking, finally standing up to shove his finger in Hermann’s face. “The mattress, I get, we need one that’s okay for your leg, but then the _entire_ bedroom set?!”

“Because _every single item_ you suggested wouldn’t have matched the bedframe we chose—”

“The bedframe _you_ chose!! The one _I_ chose you wouldn’t even _consider_ —”

“It was ugly and it was _expensive_ _,_ Newton, I _refuse_ to waste my hard-earned salary on something so—”

“Oh!! Oh, it’s _your_ hard-earned salary now! Of _course!!_ Mister hot-shot tenure gets to make _all_ the decisions now, I guess, since _I’m_ just some _dipshit_ adjunct—”

“That—!! I’ve said no such thing, Newton, you’re being _absurd—”_

“Am I?! Because it really seems like you just told me I don’t get to pick furniture ‘cause I’m so _stupid_ and _destitute_ compared to you—”

“Um,” the other young adjunct interrupts hesitantly, an abrupt reminder that they are, in fact, in public, and that she and her husband — among other alarmed IKEA patrons — have been uncomfortably watching their bickering for the better part of ten minutes. (Hermann suspects that she’s come to regret extending them the invitation in the first place.)

 _“Sorry,”_ Newt responds, petulant and exaggerated, defensively crossing his arms with hands stuffed into armpits. “Sorry. If _Hermann_ would just learn to fuckin’ _listen_ to me _—”_

“How about if _you_ learn to have some bloody _taste_ for once in your blasted life—”

“Okay, uh,” her husband says, grabbing his wife’s hand. “How about, um. We’ll go on ahead, and you guys can, uh. Catch up when you’ve decided?”

“Fine,” Hermann sniffs, not turning his glare away from Newton.

“Works for me,” Newt spits back, doing the same.

The other couple skitter away before the shouting can resume.

 

\---

 

The first floor gents’ is blessedly empty when they storm in, meaning there’s no prying eyes as Hermann manhandles Newton into the nearest stall, bolts the door behind them, and pins him against the wall in one frantic series of movements. In an instant they’re kissing breathlessly, hands tangling in hair and clothes, in a way that the stress of house-hunting and moving and the discomfort of the air mattress has denied them for the past few weeks.

“God, just like old times, huh?” Newt laughs, breathy and high-strung, when Hermann’s eager lips move from his mouth down to his neck, pulling his button-up just enough out of the way that he can mark him up where it won’t be seen. “You must’ve seen that in the drift back then, right? All those days where you’d be screaming at me about some bullshit and I’d storm outta the lab and you thought I was just, like, too pissed off to respond, but I was actually running back to my bunk ‘cause I was just so desperate to jer—”

 _“Hush,”_ Hermann chides with a none-too-subtle roll of his hips, and Newton cuts off immediately with a sweet little whimper, hands fisting and tugging up his blazer as Hermann’s mouth continues to move across his collarbone. “I’m sorry I wasn’t listening to you, darling. I truly am. We’ll go back and look at the bedroom sets again. I think you should have a say about that above all else—” Another snap of his hips, a startled gasp from Newt— “given how much time I intend to have you _spend_ in that bed.”

“Dude, I could not give _less_ of a shit about bedroom sets right now,” Newton all but sobs, already beginning to grind up on Hermann’s good leg in a way that makes his investment in the situation at hand _glaringly_ obvious. “I— _fuck,_ Hermann, let’s just bail, we can just order this shit online later, just— just take me home, I _need_ you—”

“The shipping costs alone would be astronomical, Newton,” Hermann reminds him, albeit with some reluctance. It’s not as if _he’s_ particularly invested in furniture shopping at the moment, after all, not with Newt clinging tight and absurdly responsive under his touch. “And besides, the air mattress—”

“Is no good on your hip, I know, I _know_ _,”_ Newton whines, though he refuses to disentangle from Hermann. (To be fair, Hermann isn’t exactly moving away either). “Let’s just finish shopping _really_ quick, then, I dunno how I’m gonna survive till we get home at this point—”

Hermann considers a long moment, weighing their location and a general sense of propriety against Newton, half-hard and desperate against him, and the sweet impulsiveness that had proved contagious during their Drift. Finally, he leans in for another kiss, long and lingering, then lets his lips drag to Newt’s ear. “Can you be very, _very_ quiet?”

“Holy _shit,_ dude,” Newton squeaks, voice loud and breaking, earning a withering glare from Hermann. “Fuck— yeah, yes I _know_ I hear it, but I’ll be quiet, I swear, I can be quiet—”

Sighing to himself, Hermann moves a hand to Newt’s absurd skinny tie, undoes it just enough to shift up off his neck, then readjusts it tight with the knot in Newton’s mouth, shutting him up with a muffled little shout of surprise. “Just to be safe,” he murmurs, low and breathy, going so far to give Newt a little wink. He whines against the makeshift gag, leaning forward to press their foreheads together fondly, and Hermann steals another chaste little kiss before slipping a hand between them.

 

\---

 

They don’t catch up with the other couple until they reach the warehouse over half an hour later, and he can’t tell what’s surprising them more: the fact that they made it this far at all, or that they’re holding hands fondly rather than strangling each other half to death in the outdoor goods section. (Or, perhaps they didn’t clean up as well as he thinks they did, and they can see how obviously debauched they now are. For the sake of his pride, though, he decides to pretend like that last bit isn’t a possibility.)

“Oh!” The young woman starts when she catches sight of them, looking immediately nervous, as if she expects a shouting match to resume at any moment. “We didn’t— um. You worked things out, then…?”

“Quite,” Hermann nods sharply, hoping they don’t notice the way he absentmindedly fidgets with his cane. “We, ah, reached a compromise.”

“Compromise,” Newton concurs, squeezing Hermann’s free hand tightly, the other casually swinging their basket full of smaller household miscellanea. (Assorted china and kitchenware, mostly, among them a jaeger-and-kaiju salt-and-pepper-shaker set that Newt had insisted on and even Hermann had to admit was perfectly suited to them.) “Yeah, yeah, we ended up compromising _really_ good.”

“Newton—“

“Just, definitely one of our better compromises,” he continues, cheeky. “Top five for _sure._ You know, in, uh, compromises. It, you know, it was the unexpectedness of it that made it, the spontaneity. Of the compromise. Definitely, mm, definitely looking forward to checking out and doing some more _compromising_ at home—“

 _“Newt,”_ he hisses, firmer, and Newton stops talking, though he’s still grinning with manic glee. Either the others don’t catch the obvious thread, or they politely choose to ignore it, shrugging nonchalantly as they continue to trek through the warehouse.

Not a second after they’ve turned away, Newton presses a quick, sweet kiss to the corner of Hermann’s mouth, bouncing on his heels as they follow several paces behind. “I love you, y’know that?” Newt chirps. “I don’t say it enough. Or maybe I say it too much, I dunno. I just really love you.”

“I love you, too,” Hermann sighs, far more reserved, though he runs a thumb fondly over Newton’s hand. “Now you’re _certain_ you’re happy with the furniture we picked? I’ll be furious if it turns out later you were agreeing just to please me—”

“I mean, I’m definitely gonna need further data on the bed before I’m _toootally_ sure. Gotta, y’know. Take it home and see how it _handles,_ _”_ he says, voice dripping with the obvious implications even before he tries to punctuate it by slipping his hand free of Hermann’s and making a grab for his arse instead. Hermann swats his hand away before he can make contact, though, so he instead settles for interlacing their fingers once again. “Seriously, though, this is, uh. This still doesn’t feel _real_ yet, you know? Us actually… doing this. For real and all.”

“It’s long overdue,” Hermann says, because it’s true. There are days he imagines another life, another chain of events. A world where the Breach never opened, where his and Newton’s first meeting wasn’t marred by his anxious close-mindedness and the other’s manic showmanship, where they hadn’t spent countless years in denial of their blatant, all-encompassing love for each other. In that life, he imagines — inexplicably nostalgic for something that never happened — they would have married nearly a decade ago, be comfortably settled down by now with a sweet little cottage and a garden and kids, or cats, or whatever they landed on in that regard. (Lizards, probably. Newton continued to insist he wanted a lizard or three.)

“We made it work in the end, though,” Newt hums, stepping closer so he can rest his head gently on Hermann’s shoulder as they walk. Hermann’s eyes almost flutter shut at the feeling of Newton’s mussed hair against his cheekbone, the sheer human warmth of him.

“Yes,” he sighs, softhearted, releasing Newt’s hand so he can curl an arm over his shoulders, leaning against him as they walk. He thinks about their home, and filling its now-sparse rooms with furnishings, and viscerally bickering with Newton over which time-worn movie posters he can put up where, and making love in the aftermath, and the warm, endless future together stretching out before them. “Yes, we did.”

**Author's Note:**

> Catch me @anonymouspuzzler on tumblr and @BigPuzz on twitter! Thanks for reading!!


End file.
